Maedhros's End
by Morgaur
Summary: This is a - vey late - Christmas/New Year's gift to RandomCelt of thewayfaringstrangers. Basically, what I think Maedhros went through when he finally got the Silmarils. Hope you like it!
1. Chapter 1

**For RandomCelt, of thewayfaringstrangers**

**Well, this is my take on what is going through Maedhros's mind, in poem form. Sorry about the delay, but...  
Anyway, enjoy!**

* * *

Ai! my hand burns!  
Light in it, fire from it,  
A Silmaril I clasp, tight holding,  
As a burning brand lit -  
All to flames it turns.

No! my birthright!  
Light caught by my father,  
In this jewel ensnared, more precious  
Than gold, fairer further -  
O Immortal light.

Yet wait - for why  
My hand like fire sears?  
Blackens as in flames, pain infinite -  
From my eyes spill hot tears,  
Who doth never cry.

Can it be so?  
Did Eonwë speak true?  
That from them my right has passed away?  
Now bitterly do I rue  
Mine oath - but no!

Regret has done,  
Repentance's time gone.  
My burden I must carry, till death  
Take me, of honour shorn -  
My face all now shun.

The pain doth grow -  
Agony, flaming bright  
As the Sun; over my cheeks tears  
Blinding, blurring my sight  
As a river flow!

Eru! end this!  
Relief from pain give me  
From my oath and burden release me!  
My agony I flee  
Torn now from all bliss!

Fiery river  
That opens before me  
Thy rippling flames my body enfold -  
No more this world to see;  
Hail, o death giver!

The Silmaril  
Into the Earth enshroud -  
Forever lost; so my oath fulfilled!  
Mourn me not; once so proud,  
Fallen to evil.

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**Okay, the next chapter is prose. Not quite the same, but hey. Oh: When I wrote this, I had Malukah's Reignite floating through my head. I have no idea how it influenced the poem.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Alright, this is my prose take on Maedhros's end. I know it's sad, but I couldn't think of anything else I could write properly. The Silm just seems to make me think melancholy for some reason. Well, enjoy - if you can...**

* * *

"_If Manwë and Varda themselves deny the fulfilment of an oath to which we named them in witness, is it not made void?"_

"_But how shall our voices reach to Ilúvatar beyond the Circles of the World? And by Ilúvatar we swore in our madness, and called the Everlasting Darkness down upon us, if we kept not our word. Who shall release us?"_

"_If none can release us, then indeed the Everlasting Darkness shall be our lot, whether we keep our oath or break it; but less evil shall we do in the breaking."_

_But Maedhros ultimately prevailed over his brother, and they prepared to seize the Silmarils by force. Here is told what befell Maedhros, following the completion of their plan to seize the jewels of their father._

Maglor lowered his head into his hands.

"And what if we are challenged, and denied entry?" he asked through his fingers.

There was no answer.

He looked up, stared across the hall to his brother. Maedhros was leaning against the mantel, staring down at the flickering flames. The dancing light of the fire illuminated his face, drawn and haggard.

"Maítimo?" he asked, tentatively.

Maedhros raised his head and looked at him. His eyes burnt with a haunted light and his cheeks were sunken.

"If they challenge us?" he replied, his voice harsh. "We-" his voice broke and he made a curious sound in his throat. It sounded like a strangled sob. "We kill anyone who stands in our way." His voice grated suddenly and he turned violently away, resting his forehead against the mantel.

Maglor said nothing, but a single tear rolled down his cheek.

They armed themselves slowly and in silence, neither looking at the other.

Maedhros touched the stump of his right wrist unconsciously. His mind was cast back, memory drifting back to when he hung from the peak of Thangorodrim and Fingon saved him. The tide carried him on, through the wars against Morgoth, now overthrown, and all the defeats and deaths the Eldar and the Edain suffered. He remembered the Dagor Aglareb, the Dagor Bragollach, the Nirnaeth Arnoeidad. He remembered the faces of all his kin slain by Morgoth's armies in the long war for the Silmarils he would regain tonight. He remembered his father, lying in his sons' arms, cursing Morgoth with his last breath and charging them to fulfil his oath, even as his body crumbled and fell to ashes as his spirit - rightly was he named Fëanarö! - fled to the Halls of Mandos.

He finished arming and threw a long black cloak over his shoulders, drawing the hood up to conceal his face. Then he turned and looked at his brother.

Maglor drew the hood of his own cloak up and nodded. He did not speak. He did not need to.

Neither did Maedhros.

They both knew that, whatever happened, they would not meet again except in the Halls of Mandos, if even then.

Maedhros flung open the doors of his hall of Himring and strode forth into the night.

* * *

Maedhros reached out, closed his hand over the Silmaril…and screamed.

Pain…

Pain…

Pain and fire and black despair crashed through his body, flooding out from his hand in thundering waves. He could not move, could not stir a muscle, could not think, as the pain tore through him.

It ripped his mind away, it burned away his sense, it took his memory and consumed it in the blink of an eye.

He forgot Maglor, writhing beside him, forgot the Silmarils, forgot even his own name…

He forgot everything except the pain…

_He leapt up to stand beside his father, his keen blade drawn and blazing in the flickering torchlight as he thrust it up, filled with hate and anger and hurt. The blasphemous words of his father's oath flowed from his tongue in a torrent of rage and defiance as he took it upon himself, took upon himself the greatest and worst burden of all, vowing war upon even the Valar if so it passed…_

_He ducked and stabbed an elf through the heart, keeping pace with his father as they charged through Alqualondë, hewing down the guiltless Sindar. Another elf, barely out of childhood, leapt at him, brandishing aloft a knife that was scarce more than a toy. He slew him with a single sweep of his blood-red blade, slashing through his throat, the blood of the child spattering across his face…_

_He stood upon the cliffs overlooking Losgar at the mouth of the Firth of Drengist, the smoke from the burning white ships stinging his eyes. He watched the ships burn, knowing that on the far shore Fingon and the greater part of the Noldor were now doomed to death, but he did not lift a finger, did not speak a word to stop the burning…_

_He stormed through Menegroth, hewing Dior's warriors down, his brothers at his side. Curufin fell, then dark Caranthir, their broken bodies lying amongst the dead of both sides. In the Great Hall Celegorm fought with Dior and was slain, falling back from the dais where Dior stood, his gleaming sword falling in a shining arc to clatter on the ground. Then Dior fell by the hands of one of Caranthir's elves, falling beside the body of his dead foe and kinsman. He heard the cries of Dior's two sons, Elured and Eluchil, as Celegorm's servants carried them into the now-harsh forests of Doriath to die, but did not move to save them…_

_He searched through the forests, crying their names, branches and thorns lacerating his hands and face, his followers all around him, helping…but in vain…_

_He came upon the dwellings at the mouth of Sirion with fire and the sword, destroying and killing, him and his remaining brothers. He stood at the shore, surf breaking on his feet, staring out to sea whence Elwing had vanished, bearing the Silmaril, as behind him the funeral pyres of Amrod and Amras sent up their choking smoke and Maglor sang their lament…_

_He struck down the guards outside the tent whence the Silmarils were kept, hewing them down, the golden hair of the Vanyar staining with swift-flowing blood…_

Memory and thought came rushing back, striking him with the force of a falling mountain. Maedhros staggered and fell to his knees, feeling as if new-begun the well of pain in his hand. He looked up and saw through a red mist of agony Eönwë standing framed in the tent opening, sword in hand. He spoke, but Maedhros could not understand - the roar of the pain-driven blood in his ears drowned out the sound.

Every nerve, every fibre in his body screamed at him to let go, to drop the Silmaril and end the pain, but his oath would not let him. He would not, _could not_, let go. He had to hold on to the bitter end.

Slowly he stood, clutching the Silmaril to his breast e'en though the pain and the heat of the pain were nigh-unbearable. He raised the blade he wore on his right arm and prepared to die, to fight until he could not fight anymore and his head were struck from his body. The oath drove him on, though it was in vain.

Eönwë stepped aside and lifted the tentflap. "Go," he said, and Maedhros heard it.

Driven by the madness of pain and despair Maedhros ran. He fled the tent, fled past the watching and sorrowing host of Valinor, and away into the East.

He ran until his feet bled. He ran until the lands grew strange and the stars changed. He ran until he no longer knew how far he had ran, nor in which direction he ran.

As he ran he longed to cry out, to have some relief, however slight, from the pain that swamped his mind and body, but he could not. All the time faces from his past, the faces of the elves he or his kin had slain in pursuit of their oaths, burned in his mind's eye, marching past in an unending line of death and destruction.

Remorse and regret welled up within him and overflowed, filling his soul with sadness and self-hate. He saw what he had become, saw what he and his kin had done to fulfil an oath they should not have taken, and finally he cried aloud.

He cried out to Erú, Ilúvatar, for mercy and forgiveness, for the ending of his pain and the release from his oath…and Erú heard.

Maedhros's sight cleared of a sudden, and lo he stood upon the lip of a great mountain that held in its heart a vast river of living flame, and he knew that it was Ilúvatar's will that he was there.

He raised his hand to cast the Silmaril into the depths…but he beheld as never before the glory and beauty of the jewel that blazed with the Light of the Trees before they were sullied and could not cast it away, could not throw that for which he, for which his race, for which Arda had suffered so much…and so he leapt.

He leapt from the lip of the chasm and plunged into the fiery depths below, bearing the Silmaril to their blazing tomb in the heart of the world, and so Maedhros, greatest of the Noldor after his father Fëanor, ended.

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**Okay! I hope you liked it...took me long enough to write, so you better... ;-)  
Two Steps From Hell: Archangel was thundering in my ears when I wrote this one. I think it reads better with that accompaniment. If that's how you spell it. Apropos of spelling: I think that's Feanor's name's form in Quenya. If it isn't, tell me and I'll edit it.  
Morgaur**


End file.
